Algonquin - Kiosk- Day 2

It was a bit of a foggy morning and somewhat grey, but that didn't bring my spirits down at all. It was only a thin veil of fog and it lifted pretty quickly. 

Before I had even had breakfast I decided to check out the area more. There are no hiking trails at Kiosk but there is plenty of shoreline to explore. So I took Balto for a long walk down the shoreline. 

It was warm for October, but not warm enough for me to want to go swimming. It didn't stop Balto from trying though. However, he didn't stay in very long. Guess the water was colder than he thought. 

As we rounded the first bend I saw a flock of 4 Canada Geese swimming out in the water.  

​They eyed us up but didn't make a run for it. 

A little further up I saw a big bird out in the water stretching and flapping it's wings. It was the Cormorant. that I had seen the day before. 

It was very peaceful first thing in the morning. A hedge of Sumac trees lined the edge of the shore with a row of long decorative grasses in front of it. They were beginning to change to their fall colours. 

Even the grasses were changing to a pretty peach colour. 

Soon we reached campsite J1 and climbed up the bank to the top of the campsite. Campsite J1 and J2 are jump off sites for canoers that are about to embark on overnight canoe trips. They are not usually sites that you can rent, but occasionally when the campground is quite full you can rent one as an over flow site. They are both very nice sites with large grassy open areas. 

There was a thin wall of trees between J1 and J2. One of the trees had some climbing ivy all over it that had turned a deep red for the fall. It almost looked like the pine tree was dressed in a red Christmas garland. 

J2 had a nice view of the lake and was quiet and secluded. Both of these sites were every bit as nice as the one I was already on. 

Instead of walking back the way we came, we took the path back around towards our campsite. 

The path led through the trees and back to the grassy parking lot with the wall of Sumacs around it. 

Finally we came full circle; back to our campsite. By this time I was hungry and I set about getting ready for breakfast. 

I had intended to have Oatmeal for breakfast but I was too hungry to go about starting a fire and waiting for the water to boil. Besides, I hadn't chopped any wood and that would take even more time. So I figured that I would just have cold cereal instead. I had bought a little container of milk specifically for that. But when I went to get the cereal I realized that I had forgotten the box at home. So instead I resorted to what I was originally going to have with my lunch; a container of Del Monte mixed fruit. They were just the thing and tasted great!

In light of not having chopped wood to make breakfast with, I set about making that my first task after breakfast. I chopped and sorted all my wood into piles of fire starter pieces, kindling, and larger pieces. Now whenever I wanted to start a fire I just had to grab what I needed from the piles and not worry about having to chop it first. 

As I chopped wood I noticed a couple of canoers picking their way though the maze of logs in the lake that were left over from the old mill. I was curious to see if it would give them any trouble, but it didn't seem to slow them down. 

The logs were not the only evidence of a community left behind. There were cement parts of old toppled buildings still sticking out of the ground with plants growing over and on them. 

There were also remains of lumber from what might have been a dock down by the water. 

The sun started to come out and it was turning into a beautiful day. As I chopped wood the neighbours on site # 25 were packing up and heading out. It was a shame that they were going to miss the beautiful day here. That meant there was just me and the people on site # 21 left on this side of the campground. 
   When I was done chopping wood I went inside of my tent and read a book for awhile. Balto came in and napped beside me. 
   All was quiet for awhile until I started hearing some strange noises coming from the waters edge. At first I thought nothing of it and figured it was maybe the geese or ducks back again. But the odd noises persisted and I stopped reading and focused my attention on the sounds to try to figure out what it was I was hearing. It sounded kind of like a gargle and kind of like chewing. As a matter of fact it sounded very much like the noises my pet ferrets make when they are eating meat. 
   My curiosity got the better of me by now. I looked over at Balto who was sound asleep. Since he is practically deaf he was not even aware that there were any noises at all. I snuck out of the tent so as not to disturb Balto and to be able to quietly observe whatever may be making the noises. 
   And there they were.... three otters feasting away on the muscles they were finding at the shallow bottom of the lake. 

I had never seen otters in the wild before and I was pretty excited to be able to watch not one or two, but three of them! 

I was hidden behind some bushes so the otters did not notice me for quite some time. Eventually Balto woke up and came looking for me though. Once the otters realized that they were not alone they swam out further from the shore. They climbed upon the same pile of rocks that the Cormorant had been on and they stayed there sunning themselves and napping before finally moving on about an hour later. 

As the day wore on it became pretty over cast. It didn't rain but the clouds kept the sun at bay. 

I built another fire at lunch time and had hot dogs for lunch. I also ate some Babybel cheese that I had brought along with me. I peeled open the cheese and threw one of the red waxy coatings into the fire. That's when I noticed that the red wax burnt really well and went up with a "whoosh!".  I thought to myself, "these would be a great addition to the home made fire starters that I had made out of toilet paper rolls and dryer lint". So every time I lit a fire while I was at Kiosk I threw in one of the red wax shells to help it along. 

After lunch I took a nap. It was intended to be a short nap but I ended up sleeping for about 2 hours. When I woke up it was about 5:30 pm nut it was too early for dinner. So I took Balto for a walk up the road to see what the other campsites were like. There is an old abandoned railway line that runs through the park.

​ It looks like it would be a great hiking trail but unfortunately it is private property. So we just stuck to the road. 

As I walked by and looked over the other campsites I decided that site # 24 was also another good campsite that I would have to keep in mind for future reference. I didn't see much in the way of wildlife except for a bunch of sparrows that seemed to be very plentiful here. There were, however, a few pretty plants like some wild rose hips. 

And some Turkey Tail fungi that spiraled up to look almost like a brown rose in the grass. 

We walked to the main roadway and then turned around and headed back. There were tons of bugs following me and although they were not biting, they were still pretty annoying. 

We went past the bathrooms that were located on the top of a grassy hill. This bathroom was one of the absolute best I have ever seen in a provincial park (not counting comfort stations). Right away just to look at it you can already notice some things that were different about it. For one, it had a solar panel on the roof. I am assuming to light up the outside lights at night however it had been so cloudy lately that I don't think the solar panels were getting enough power for that. Secondly it was built on top of a hill with a balcony leading up to it. 

It was a vault toilet (non-flushing) but it was not like the other vault toilets that you usually see. Instead it was a composting vault toilet. 


  The building was up on the hill but the hole was as deep as the hill was tall. So you didn't want to drop anything valuable into the hole because it was a long way down and you would probably never get it back out again. (Not that you would want to really anyways). 


​  Everyday the rangers came and added a scoop or two of sawdust into it. 

But the best thing about this bathroom was it didn't smell bad!
Actually, it smelt pretty good because all you can smell is the scent of cedar. 

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The walls were all made of cedar. The door was made of cedar. The floor was made out of a washable outdoor vinyl. Everything was spotless. The toilet, floor, garbage can, were all fantastically clean. There weren't even any spiders or bugs in there! The roof was made of a clear plastic so there was plenty of light and it didn't feel like a dark cave inside. 

After our walk I went into the screen tent to read for awhile until the sun went down. Then I began to build a fire for supper. 

I also lit a colour changing candle in celebration of my sister's wedding that I had just attended a few days earlier. The candle reminded me of her both because she gave it to me and because her wedding was a multi-coloured wedding and this candle changed to all different colors as it burned down. It was quite pretty sitting on the picnic table in the dusk. Plus it gave me a bit of added light to make supper by without having to turn on the lantern. 

As I was just about to sit down to supper I heard a huge splash coming from the shore of the lake very close by. It sounded like a rock or log had been thrown into the water.  I grabbed my lantern and turned it on thinking that maybe Balto had fallen in or something. But as I got closer to the waters edge, Balto came up behind me and he was dry so I knew that it wasn't him. When I got to the water I didn't see anything unusual in the water. I didn't even see ripples in the water. I stood there listening for a few moments with the light shining on the lake, but I didn't hear anything else splashing around. It was too dark to see much and I wanted to eat my supper so I gave up looking and figured I would take a closer look in the morning.  So I went back to the fire and sat there until the fire dwindled down to nothing. 

It was a cloudy night but there were enough breaks in the clouds that you could still see the stars and occasionally a glimpse of the moon. It was not as cold this night as it had been the night before. So I went to sleep in comfort with the sound of the loons calling across the lake.